Rafal Topolewski

Rafal Topolewski (b.1983, Poland) is a Lisbon-based artist. Primarily working with the medium of painting, Topolewski’s works negotiate ideas about artificiality, psychology and intimacy in relation to representation and objecthood. The works investigate the connection between these aspects and how they intersect. Topolewski’s compositions contain elements that are corresponding with his interest in superstition, belief systems, obsessive-compulsive disorder and the following consequences/aftermath. The above aspects are viewed from both more intimate, personal points of view and experiences but also as a generic social issue. The application of paint is not heavy-handed, the compositions are laden with poetry, elegy and intimacy at once. Having boomeranged from figuration to abstraction and then back again, his work duly picked up new understandings of the way objects and bodies work formally, how they operate within space, and thus their potential for containment within the picture plane. Rafal Topolewski studied Fine Art at the Royal Academy of Arts and at the Manchester Metropolitan University. Selected recent solo and group exhibitions include: Becoming Creature, Tabula Rasa Gallery (London, 2022, group); Castelet, Simo Bacar, (Lisbon 2022, group); Corpo e Mente, curated by Lawrence Van Hagen, Palazzo Barbaro, (Venice 2022, group); If Not, Winter, Simo Bacar, (Lisbon 2022, solo); Isle, Lewis Hammond and Rafal Topolewski, Smart Objects, (Los Angeles 2018, dual-solo); Terraforms, The Concept Space, (London 2018, group), just to name a few. ...

Tabula Rasa Gallery is based in Beijing's 798 art district. Established in 2015, it aims to promote both Chinese and international contemporary artists through exhibitions, talks, research and publication. The gallery name is Latin for 'blank state'. In philosophical discourse, it refers to the idea that our knowledge comes from our experiences and education, all participants are born in a Tabula Rasa state. Tabula Rasa hopes that the exhibitions they present can subvert viewers’ preconceptions, creating conditions for fresh artistic experiments.